Haritha

The Doorway To The Heart

Perhaps one of God’s most amazing creations is the human mind.

This verse vividly declares how vulnerable the mind can be to temptations that turn its power in ungodly directions. What a person can imagine can impact his or her heart.

Our culture is full of lustful ploys that taunt and tease. Modest dress is an idea that seems provincial in a day and age when exposing a lot of skin is the norm. “Low-cut” and “short” describe many of the clothing options for women of all ages.

Why would Jesus consider lusting after a sexy woman on television or relishing a long look at an attractive woman walking down the street adultery in the heart?

I think it is because the mind, the heart, and the soul are connected. What we think impacts how we feel and that impacts how we act.

A mere glance can turn the wonder of sex as God intended it into a damaging force if the person glancing isn’t aware of the mind’s power.

People with good intentions can find themselves in the middle of illicit relationships and wonder how they got there.

How did something God wonderfully created become an instrument of pain, confusion, disappointment, and distrust? People don’t generally fall into sexually immoral situations easily.

There is a process that begins in the mind and ends in physical entanglement. The first part of that process is mental. When a man looks lustfully at a woman he has a choice to make.

Will he entertain that thought and keep that image in his mind, or will he replace it with a pure thought? If the lustful thought lingers, it can soon turn into an emotional attachment.

Thoughts can become feelings that have a powerful pull on him. He can become emotionally dependent on the woman without any physical touch.

And if the emotions grow, the man may finally express them to the woman. If she is vulnerable and chooses unwisely, a relationship may develop that leads to physical adultery, with all its damage, pain, and broken trust.

In the passage from Matthew, we can also see Jesus making it clear that he did not come to earth to do away with God’s law. If anything, he emphasized God’s law in new and even more demanding ways.

When Jesus told his disciples that there was more to lust than sexual behavior, he wasn’t downplaying the sinful destructiveness of adultery. Rather, he was showing that if we focus on sin when it has already been committed, we are starting too late.

Each of the acts prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) starts with an offense of the heart. Idolatry begins with a lack of faith in God and a desire to turn elsewhere for supernatural help.

Murder begins with anger. Robbery begins with greed and jealousy for other people’s possessions.

Jesus isn’t telling us to ignore sin. What he’s trying to do is get us to look within our hearts, examine our souls, and be sensitive to the roots of sinful attitudes that, if permitted to grow unhindered, will undoubtedly blossom into future sinful acts.

He’s also trying to challenge us to discipline our minds so that they think godly thoughts. For it is with our thoughts that we often sow the seeds of future sins.

Father, help me to clean out the roots of sin before they grow into sinful acts.

Life Is a Learning Adventure

A Young woman asked me to help her decide if she or her husband was right about an issue. Both were sure that God had told them the answer to their dilemma, but their “words from God” were different.

We talked and concluded that it is often difficult to be really clear about what God is saying. The way we see God is obscured, in part, because he doesn’t reveal all of himself to us this side of heaven.

The mirror 1 Corinthians 13:12 mentions would have been made of metal, probably bronze.

The people of New Testament times polished the metal until they could see their reflections, but even then they would have been blurry and discolored.

God tells us that we see him with the same lack of clarity that using such a mirror would produce. We are limited in our knowledge of him.

This reminds me of the early years of my marriage to Steve. We met, fell in love, spent lots of time together, and married after being pretty sure we knew each other very well.

As our day-to-day life unfolded, though, I was so often surprised at Steve’s reactions, responses, and ideas. I’m sure he felt the same way. We had seen each other as a poor reflection in a polished metal mirror.

Our marriage is not unusual. Couples learn new and wonderful (sometimes, not so wonderful) things about their mates for many years as they grow together.

And as they learn, they can enjoy each other more and more. Even now some of the new things we discover about each other after thirteen years of marriage still surprise us.

This continual revelation makes life an adventure.

Our adventure with God through the years reveals more and more about him also. We grow closer to him and understand more of his Word.

And then, when he comes back we will experience knowing him and being fully known. We will see God face-to-face. How amazing to contemplate that God is willing to reveal all of himself to us.

Sometimes when he seems distant or his Word seems hard to understand, it may be helpful to look with a long view to the time when the reflection of God that we see now will be crystal clear. Any confusion we have about who is hearing him more accurately will be gone.

In the meantime, we do the best we can to reason together, pray, seek counsel, and make decisions with open hearts toward one another—rather than debating who is right and who is wrong!

Father, we look forward to the day when we will be fully in your presence. Thank you for the glimpses now that give us a taste of the future.

Grace Or Cuilt?

How do you picture God? Loving or punishing? Forgiving or judgmental? Mark Twain was a leading humorist of his day, but he also had his dark, pessimistic side.

In one of his angry essays on religion, Twain described the biblical God as a malevolent monster who made people blind by poking out their eyes, made people deformed by making one leg shorter than the other, and then laughed about all the cruel hardships he had inflicted.

Painters have also added their unique visions to our perceptions of God.

Michelangelo’s The Creation of Man, a huge fresco that adorns the ceiling of Rome’s Sistine Chapel, shows God as a bearded, muscular elderly man who, surrounded by angels, extends his hand toward a reclining nude Adam.

Centuries later, William Blake’s work The Ancient of Days shows

God is a bearded, muscular young man who uses an engineering device to measure the world he is making.

From what did your image of God come?

If your earthly father was warm and loving, that may help you have a positive image of God. But for people who have suffered through parental abuse, picturing God as a loving heavenly father can often be difficult.

None of us will ever have a complete picture of God until we get to heaven. Even Moses, who had a direct encounter with God, never saw the Creator in all his glory.

In this life, the best way for us to gain an accurate picture of God is by studying the clues the Bible provides for us. And as the two verses in Deuteronomy show, this process isn’t always easy.

Before Moses left the people he had led for four decades, he once again explained the laws of God to them. It was during this instruction that he called God both “a consuming fire” and “a merciful God.”

How could both of these things be true? A review of the preceding books of the Bible repeatedly answers this question. When God’s people turned against him and his commands, his anger and judgment were fierce.

But when his people recognized the errors of their ways, repented, and returned to God in sincerity and submission, his grace and forgiveness knew no limits.

It’s the same for us today. It’s not God who is changing, it’s us.

God, you are both a consuming fire and a merciful father Help me live my life in such a way that it’s your mercy I see.

A Big Command From A Small Place

Steve and I were able to visit Israel before an eruption of violence almost stopped tourism to this fascinating country.

In ten days we traveled the length and breadth of that historic region, visiting most of the places where Jesus had lived and ministered.

We recalled Old Testament stories of David and his time in the Judean Desert as he fled from Saul, and we drove by Jericho near the land the Israelites claimed when they crossed the Jordan after wandering in the desert for forty years.

Jesus spoke the famous command of Matthew 28:19, which is known as the Great Commission, on a mountain in Galilee.

The Sea of Galilee is really a lake and the mountains surrounding it seem like large hills to this Colorado resident. But the surprising size didn’t di¬minish the impact of walking where Jesus walked.

The hillside was grass-covered and lush. Tropical bushes and flowers bloomed and the Sea of Galilee sparkled in the sunshine at the base of the hill.

While there I reflected that when Jesus spoke the words of the Great Commission in this same spot or a similar one nearby, he spoke only to the remaining eleven disciples.

I’ve often wondered if they could even begin to grasp the power he was bestowing on them to carry out this task. Their own world was small.

Israel today is only 256 miles north to south and 81 miles east to west, with a 143-mile coastline.

The disciples would have been primarily in the regions where Jesus ministered, and it wasn’t until after the persecution of the church (Acts 8) that other believers scattered from the communities in Israel where they lived.

As Steve and I traveled around in our tour bus I certainly understood that Jesus and the disciples had covered ground on foot.

But in light of the words of the Great Commission I was, and am, still amazed at the small number of people and the relatively puny geographic size of their country.

The Roman Empire completely dwarfed them, and yet they became the world’s most populous religion.

These men had none of the trappings of power that would be associated with world movements; no numbers, no wealth, no political influence, no prestige, and no troops.

All they had was their firsthand witness to the miracle of God incarnate and the promise of the Holy Spirit to come and reside in each of them.

The disciples of ancient Israel received this verse and obeyed it. And now we are a part of their heritage.

Father, thank you for the obedience of those eleven men who sat with Jesus on a hillside in Galilee. We marvel at what is still unfolding as a result of their faith. Help us to believe that even we can impact the world for Christ.

Passing The Buck

One warm spring day—when you would have rather been anywhere than in math class—your teacher looked you straight in the eyes and asked you where your assignment was.

You squirmed uncomfortably in your seat, ransacking your mental library for a plausible alibi, until you came up with the following excuse: “My dog ate it.”

You didn’t have a dog. And even more important, you didn’t have a finished assignment for an imaginary canine companion to consume.

Still, you offered up your lame excuse. And as you did so, you prayed to whatever God you could imagine that your teacher would not hear your heart beating like a bass drum or see the rivers of sweat rolling down your face.

“Well,” she said, “I expect you to do the assignment over and bring it in with you tomorrow.”

Twenty-five years later you found yourself on the hot seat again, only this time it was your boss demanding to see the quarterly sales report for the next day’s meeting.

For a split second, you considered resurrecting the dog excuse but thought better of it.

“I’m just waiting for a final number from our Hong Kong office,” you said, hoping your boss would believe you this time.

U.S. President Harry Truman had a handwritten sign on his desk that read: “The buck stops here.” But for many of us, passing the buck is more our style.

After all, passing the buck is a popular human pastime that traces its origins to the dawn of human history Adam, the first man God created, was also the first man to avoid taking responsibility for his failures.

After God created the earth, he told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. “You must not touch it, or you will die,” said God (Gen. 2:17).

But the serpent tricked Eve into eating. Then Eve persuaded Adam to eat. This was the beginning of sin—a tragedy theologians call the fall of humanity.

When God asked Adam and Eve what had happened, they tried to fool the Creator of the cosmos with a flimsy con job.

“Eve gave it to me,” said Adam.

“The serpent deceived me,” said Eve.

Things might be much different today if Adam had said, “God, I confess. I messed up. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t, and he paid the price. So do we.

God, help me own up to my mistakes and apologize to those I may have hurt.

Help me take responsibility for my sin instead of endlessly passing the buck.

Equal in God’s Sight

The apostle Paul had a problem in the province of Galatia. The -L Jewish Christians in that area held tightly to many of the Old Testament laws and tried to impose them on converts to Christianity.

They were especially concerned that all men be circumcised. Some of the Galatian legalists argued that Paul was not really an apostle and was using his teachings on grace and freedom to help persuade nonbelievers to convert.

In his letter to the Galatians Paul wrote to free followers of the gospel from the bonds of legalism. Galatians 3:28 is a strong statement for equality and the laying down of comparisons.

It places all believers on level ground before Christ based on their belief in him and not on any works they have done or will do. Christ loves and receives them just as they are, without the need to perform in order to win his approval.

How wonderful it must have been for the early Christians who were Greeks, slaves, or women to hear this teaching in Galatians.

What about us today? Do we claim that all are saved by faith alone but then regard people based on their performance or their status in society?

Do we even damage ourselves with comparisons to other Christians whom we view as more accomplished or more significant than we feel we are? Do we wonder if Christ really thinks as well of us as he does of others?

Our culture thrives on comparisons. Advertisements—designed to appeal to our desire to shine above everyone else, to win, to get the guy or girl who is the most popular, to be the envy of everyone we pass—continually bombard us.

But the quest for this kind of recognition is endless. There is always someone else who is prettier, richer, and more talented. In the Christian world, there are always people who work harder, give more, and do more.

Can it really be that Christ loves us equally, saves us totally by his grace, and frees us to be who God created us to be and not a “better” version of someone else?

Paul declared that this grace is real and is ours. When we accept this blessing, we are not only free to stop comparing ourselves unfavorably to others, but we are also free to value them for who they are. Our differences don’t disappear but they no longer separate us.

In Paul’s day, it meant that the circumcised Jewish believer and the uncircumcised Greek believer were both saved if they believed in Christ and he loved them, regardless of this physical difference.

A slave could accept Christ and embrace the spiritual freedom that salvation brings, even if he remained a slave.

That same equality is ours today.

Father, help us to see ourselves and each other as you do.

You Are Not As Smart As You Think

If you read the sermons of Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel, you’ll find plenty of verses that begin with that scary three-letter word: woe.

A psychotherapist might say that these prophets suffered from some kind of psychosis, depression, or dissociative disorder. But the Bible has a different explanation for their often hard-edged pronouncements.

God called prophets to convey his messages to the world. Some of these messages indicated God’s frustration with the ways humans repeatedly mess up their own lives.

One of the human failings that shows up throughout the messages of Isaiah and the other prophets is the sin of intellectual pride.

God doesn’t have any problems with people being smart. After all, to begin with, it was God who created brains.

What does trouble God is when the people he created think they’re so smart they can live life without any help from him? If this scenario sounds familiar, that’s because it’s part of a recurring pattern.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve decided that they could disobey God’s commands about not eating the fruit of one particular tree. Through their act of intellectual pride, humanity’s first couple introduced sin to the entire race.

God banished this prideful archangel from heaven. Today, he is known as Satan.

Pride—and its close relative, rebellion—appears frequently in the pages of Scripture. It was there when the ancestors of Noah built the Tower of Babel.

It was there when the Israelites created a golden calf and worshiped it instead of God.

It was there when David had an illicit affair with Bathsheba and killed her loving husband to hide his shame.

And it was there when a disciple named Judas took thirty pieces of silver to snitch on Jesus.

It’s not that God wants people to be stupid.

In the early 1900s, a famous evangelist named Billy Sunday said: “I don’t know any more about theology than a jackrabbit knows about Ping-Pong, but I’m on my way to glory!” Actually, God is fine with learning, scholarship, and intelligence.

It’s just when we think we’re smart enough to go it alone that we cross the line and experience woe.

Father, thank you for giving me an amazing mind, and for the grace to know I’m not as smart as I think.

A Gentle Evangelist

For a number of years, I was a rather zealous evangelist. I actively shared my faith and participated in a weekly witnessing program at my church.

Sometimes I remember those days with heartfelt grief. Certainly, a lot of people prayed to accept Jesus with me, but my aggressiveness put off a number of others.

I felt so sure of my message, but I often shared without sensitivity. I grieve over the ones who didn’t understand Jesus because my bravado got in the way.

I used to talk a lot about not hiding our lights under bushels (Matt. 5:15), but I was guilty of presenting the loving light of Jesus in a way more akin to blazing neon.

Many Christians are in the spotlight today expressing their opinions on a wide range of issues: abortion, homosexuality, family values, and politics. Is the light that others see focused on Jesus and his gift of salvation or on other issues?

I remember being at a political meeting several years ago where non-Christians expressed great concern about the views of Christians.

It made me sad that no one mentioned the God we serve or his Son. They understood little about the Jesus we follow.

This verse from 1 Peter contains three primary points: set apart Christ as Lord; always be prepared to give an answer; and do this with gentleness and respect.

In the past, I focused on the second point.

But oh, the power of a word spoken with the sensitivity of the Savior. Jesus was no weakling who wimped out if someone opposed him or argued with him.

But he was gentle (Matt. 21:5), even when tried and wrongly convicted.

I think the ability to be gentle and respectful to people who do not yet know Jesus comes from the command at the beginning of this verse: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.”

With Christ as Lord of our hearts, we comprehend our own fallenness and the graciousness of Jesus to have died for us.

We are able to look at others with compassion instead of condemnation, because we know that we are just as they are: guilty but forgiven.

Jesus gives us the power to speak in ways that convey his love and woo doubters to him. It is only after people feel loved that they are able to hear words of conviction that lead to change.

And the power of words spoken with tenderness and respect helps to usher listeners into the forgiving presence of the Savior.

Father, thank you for calling us to you with the gentleness of Jesus.

Better Than A Marathon

Many First World countries are in a bit of a fitness frenzy. Exercise programs on television abound from the wee hours of the early morning until the midafternoon.

Fitness clubs of many varying types dot the landscapes of most cities and towns. Books and videos on diets and workouts reside on numerous shelves in stores and appear on computer screens linked to many sites.

One of the motivations behind these physical pursuits is to beat the aging process. Certainly, an improved quality of life is one benefit of working out, but many fitness programs play on our desire to live longer.

We are told that we can add years to our lives with faithful regimens of exercise, and studies do seem to show enhanced and longer years for the physically active.

Exercise has power.

This verse from 1 Timothy tells us that holiness is of even greater value. It tells us that the power of godliness impacts “all things.”

Perhaps the parallel between physical fitness and righteousness holds true when it comes to the working of muscles to maintain a desired state.

A physically fit person will lose his lean form if he neglects exercise. He may be in tip-top shape one day but finds his muscles turning to flab if he goes from playing football to watching it on television.

Spiritual fitness is subject to the same kind of buildup or deterioration. No matter how mature we may be, we need to practice the disciplines of the faith that build spiritual muscle.

Prayer, Bible reading, meditation, worship, and fellowship are some of the ways that we gain and maintain spiritual health.

This verse in 1 Timothy tells us that godliness pays off in big ways, even bigger than the physical benefits of exercise.

Perhaps the most obvious benefit is that we grow closer to God. By being with him and reading His Word, we enlarge our wisdom. That, in turn, leads to making better choices in all areas of our lives.

Our thinking becomes transformed as we grow spiritually. We see life from God’s perspective and not through the lens of ungodliness.

We are able to resist temptation because our discipline in being obedient to God is fine-tuned. And so we don’t suffer the consequences of falling to the wiles of the tempter.

Most of all, we become more like Jesus. We reflect his light in a dark world and touch others with the power of his love—truly the healthiest thing we can do.

Father, help us to work on both our physical bodies and our spiritual souls.

Roots Of Righteousness

HEY weren’t preachers or priests? In fact, they weren’t official representatives of any particular religious tradition or group.

But when four famous young musicians named John, Paul, George, and Ringo traveled to India to study something called transcendental meditation with a guru named Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, people knew the world was undergoing a spiritual revolution.

Ever since the 1960s, a time of growing popularity for centuries-old Eastern religions and newfangled New Age cults, many people have assumed that meditation is a non-Christian practice.

But as this psalm shows, God has been encouraging his followers to meditate on His Word for millennia.

There are 150 Psalms, which are poems designed to be sung with musical accompaniment. The idea of meditating upon God and his Word actually appears throughout the Psalms and through much of the rest of the Bible.

Much of the time, many of us are going in a dozen different directions at once. Our hearts are torn, our minds are divided, and our prayers are fragmented and superficial.

Meditation helps us go beneath the surface of our jumbled, overactive minds and tap into the richer veins of God’s love and mercy.

Many people find that silence and solitude make it easier to meditate. Finding silence in the twenty-first-century world isn’t always easy, but it helps if you can turn off the TV for a few moments.

Solitude can be equally elusive at times, but some people find that taking a brief walk in a park gives them a few moments of the precious isolation they need. (The fact that the backdrop is God’s beautiful creation doesn’t hurt either.)

God wants you to meditate on him, but that doesn’t mean you have to go live in a monastery.

Here’s how Thomas Merton, one of the twentieth century’s most famous monks put it: “Not all men are called to be hermits, but all men need enough silence and solitude in their lives to enable the deep inner voice of their own true self to be heard at least occasionally.”

Meditation is a God-ordained way of doing this. And if we practice it regularly, we will discover the deeper roots of God’s righteousness.

Father, help me slow down enough to be alone with you and listen to what you have to tell me.